News:
Project of the Month July

Where Skylarks and Yellowhammers can rejoice: the survival habitat of the Jülchendorf dry slopes

Further development of our species conservation project areas is a top priority for our Foundation. The purchase of land is and remains the strategically most secure way to permanently protect the last natural oases, including nature reserves where hunting, fishing, and conventional agriculture are still permitted, from disturbance, overexploitation, misuse, and destruction, ensuring the continued diversity of wild animal and plant species.

The expansion of our "Lark Land" in the Jülchendorf dry slopes in the district of Parchim, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, is particularly close to our hearts.

From the end of March to the end of August, the jubilant song of countless Eurasian Skylarks can be heard high in the sky above the dry slopes on our 50 hectares of land, where they can once again breed undisturbed on the ground and successfully raise their young.

Yellowhammer, Red-backed Shrike and the critically endangered Whinchat, Bird of the Year 2023, also find a food-rich survival habitat in our protected area.

Unfortunately, however, grassland and arable land are still in high demand, especially here in the northeast of Germany. Once domestic and international investors become landowners, they double their profits with multifunctional land use – intensive agriculture plus alternative energy production. In most cases, this is done without considering the destructive consequences for nature and biodiversity.

Wind turbines and solar parks, promoted by law on arable land and grassland, are taking over more and more open countryside. Land that has been converted into industrial use in this way loses the quality of its habitat that ensures the existence of many strictly protected wild animal species.

Irrespective of our currently weakening economy, land prices for agricultural land in the northeast of Germany are at a level that should discourage us from purchasing. However, we were able once again to persuade a private landowner to sell his 0.8 ha (8,000 m²) meadow area on the Jülchendorf dry slopes to the Foundation, directly adjacent to property we already own, despite the higher land purchase price offered by an agricultural company from another European country already firmly established there with large landholdings.

This means our "Lark Land" property on the Jülchendorf dry slopes can expand to an impressive 51 hectares (510,000 m²). To securely finance the total land purchase costs of almost 16,800 euros, we are asking you today for your vital donations so that we can pay the purchase price of the land, including all ancillary costs, on time and on budget.

Whether 15, 30, or even 50 euros, every donation helps us purchase land to permanently save the Larks, Buntings, and more than 50 butterfly species in these flower-rich meadows and dry slopes, which have long since disappeared elsewhere in Germany.